A mechanical malfunction meant the ground remained open to the elements, a fitting start to a match in which neither side threatened to raise the roof. Wales will very probably win the championship if they repeat their World Cup feat and overcome England at Twickenham in the next round, with Italy visiting Cardiff on the final weekend, something that would serve to show that the championship is about the survival of the fittest.

The try by the France captain, Guilhem Guirado, two minutes from the end diluted Wales’s satisfaction at a fifth successive victory in the fixture on a night that showcased their time-honoured virtues of strength and stamina. The home side dominated for the most part and continued their strategy of looking to play with width, but on the few occasions they found space wrong options were taken and they lacked composure at crucial times.

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Their try had an element of comedy about it, with the France fly-half Jules Plisson playing a starring role. The No10 jersey has been a problem for Les Bleus all decade and the gains made by Plisson in the opening two rounds of the tournament were wasted here. His night started badly when his long pass to the wing Djibril Camara in the opening minute was a long way forward, and it got worse.

He later kicked the ball directly into touch having misinterpreted the referee’s signal after a scrum, thinking a free-kick was a full penalty, and France’s back division only had shape when François Trinh-Duc came on in the final quarter. France were by then 16-3 down, with George North’s 47th-minute try looking decisive, and for all their possession, territory and chances up to then, the score was a happy accident.

France were enjoying a rare visit to Wales’s 22 when Plisson dropped a pass. Gareth Davies, the Wales scrum-half, hacked the ball towards halfway and when the prop Jefferson Poirot’s progress was arrested as he tried to salvage something from the ruins of his side’s best attack of the game, the ball fell loose and was again met with Davies’s boot.

This time he kicked deep into opposition territory and North gave chase.Plisson was some way ahead but found himself overtaken as the ball rolled into France’s 22. The Wales wing had the choice of picking up the ball to score or kicking it over the line before diving on it. He took the latter course but missed it entirely and gave Plisson the opportunity to clear the danger, however the Frenchman’s footballing skills were no better. He scuffed the ball in North’s direction, and there was no second reprieve.

Wales’s best attacks tended to start with their scrum-half using his pace to get behind French lines, but they were not able to achieve enough continuity to sustain attacks and their discipline was poor, one area where they will need to improve significantly at Twickenham. They conceded 16 penalties and consequently had to make twice as many tackles as their opponents.

It was Wales’s defence that won them the game after they had shaded a largely sterile first half, two Dan Biggar penalties beating Plisson’s one. France had shown their intent in the opening minute when the No8, Damien Chouly, off-loaded the ball out of the back of his left hand near the halfway line, the first of 23 offloads made by Les Bleus.

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Wales had spent the week working on ways to counter France’s offloading game: line speed in defence allied with a back row that worked in harmony. They had the advantage of organisation over opponents starting out under a new head coach and that will be the case again at Twickenham, but one Englishman they have struggled to overcome is the referee, Wayne Barnes.

“We conceded twice the number of penalties that we set as a target and we will need to look at that,” said the Wales head coach, Warren Gatland. “I felt we did not get the rub of the green, but we need to look at ourselves as well. We need to improve before we face England, but Twickenham is somewhere we like playing and where we have had success.”

Wales have won at Twickenham three times under Gatland, having gone 20 years without a victory there before his arrival, and it is their physical threat that will most concern England, who will be hoping to have the centre Manu Tuilagi available again. Some of Wales’s tackling forced Barnes to consult the television match official, Dan Lydiate again penalised for a low challenge in which he did not use his arms, but their defence was sufficiently resolute to snuff out every attack except one at the end, when Guirado scored after a driving maul.

The two tries summed up a match low on excitement, in keeping with this year’s championship. All that mattered for Wales was winning and remaining in charge of their own destiny. It proved uncomplicated, but that is unlikely to be the case in two weeks in what will be England’s first major test under Eddie Jones.